Keith Hudson's Musings

A space very much to be watched

Netanyahu is nothing if not quick off the mark. No sooner had President Trump started to sign off some executive actions on Monday, overruling previous vetoes of Obama, then Israel decided to activate a plan strongly opposed by Obama — to build 566 houses in the West Bank on land sold to them by their Palestinian owners.

Yesterday, even more astonishingly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yet more plans to build 2,500 settlements in west Jerusalem. Otherwise, without the triumphant ascent of Trump in America, these plans might not have seen the light of day for another ten or twenty years.

The Middle East is a powder keg. Could not these Israeli announcements be provocative? Start a war perhaps? It could be. The ramifications are well nigh unimaginable. A space very much to be watched from now onwards.